


Those Left Behind

by Grundy



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aman (Tolkien), Coping, First Age, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Eärwen worries about her sisters, Nerdanel most of all.





	Those Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lordnelson100](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordnelson100/gifts).



> Written for the Tumblr prompt "Nerdanel: as other exiled Noldor return slowly from Mandos, and later Middle Earth, she still walks alone: whose hands and hearts were once full. It’s other women - maybe Indis and Earwen? Who start to yell at Manwe and Namos about this."

Eärwen glanced at the empty seat at the table, trying to hide her concern.

Nerdanel had not come. That almost certainly meant she’d gone off north again.

They had hoped she’d come to dinner at least.

She’d missed Irimë and Laurefindil as much as any of them. And she hadn’t said ‘no’ when Eärwen invited her to the reunion dinner for their newly returned sister and nephew. But perhaps that had been simply been because she was too surprised to say anything. There were still less than a dozen Exiles who had emerged from Mandos.

Findaráto had been the first to return – the first of the Exiles, at least.

The Lindar had begun to return around the beginning of the third yen of the Sun. But those who had returned to Alqualondë had mainly been the youngest victims, who knew the least about what had happened. Death had not been pleasant, but it was behind them, and they were eager to resume living.

But for the rest, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason that the rest of the elves could discern as to why some returned sooner than others. The only answer Namo or Irmo would give was that each person must heal and find balance in their own way and in their own time.

Findaráto had come back to them after a mere quarter of a yen.

Eärwen and her husband had been present for his return, but not because Namo had called them – they had accompanied Amarië. Her law-daughter had been bewildered by the summons to Lorien, and had needed support. Finderato had been rather bemused, for while he had rejoiced that Amarië was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, as far as he could tell, he had not asked for her to be brought, or for his parents to be brought.

It had been chalked up to the inscrutable decisions of the Valar, and everyone nodded and said they should not think too hard about it – and failed not to do exactly that. Many among both the Noldor and the Lindar tried to parse what meaning might be had from the actions of Namo, and how quickly Findaráto returned, and what it might bode for their own dead.

Nerdanel Istarnië did not.

She had not asked Findaráto – or anyone else – about her sons, living or dead.

“I fear what he will say if I do,” she told her sisters quietly when Findis oh so carefully raised the question one evening.

Nor did she try to discern, from who returned and the manner of their return, when her children might be released – not when the question was if. If they might be returned. If they might already be gone. They had in their folly invoked the Everlasting Darkness – it was possible that Ambarussa, Tyelkormo, Carnistir, and Curufinwë had been sent with their father into that darkness.

Hope was so fragile that no one dared to ask.

Especially not when the Valar could take offense at the question, whether because it was foolish to expect mercy, or because it was insulting to think it had not been granted. Not when all of them have sons and husbands of their own in Mandos – all save one. But even for Findis, there were still her brothers and father to consider. (There had been her sister as well, but Irimë is  _here_  now. She and Laurefindel had been among those who simply returned with no warning, striding back into Tirion as though the trip to Beleriand had been little more than a camping expedition gone awry.)

Eärwen knows Findis has resolved that if the time comes when she can lay down the crown, passing the responsibility for the Noldor to Arafinwë, she will pose the question to the Valar if no one else will risk it. But until that time, she is not free to ask. Her duty, as ever, is to her people. (That duty is slowly consuming her, and Eärwen can see how there is less and less of the Findis they once knew the longer she soldiers on, bearing that heavy burden alone. She has never even had time to properly mourn her father, never mind her brothers, sister, niece, and nephews. There are times Eärwen worries that she may one day look only to find nothing left of her sister at all, and she wonders if she is the only one who sees it. Those are the times it is easy to be angry with Fëanaro all over again.)

Anairë tries very hard to be a help to Nerdanel, but it is all but impossible for her to comfort anyone when she herself is so shattered. Her husband, sons, daughter, grandson, and presumably granddaughter as well all dead, and the young great-grandson she has never met likely to follow them at any time. Not to mention her quiet terror that her granddaughter’s half-elven son may not be elvish enough for the Halls. No one is sure what will happen to the fëar of children born of an elven mother and Mannish father should they die.

Eärwen herself does what she can for Nerdanel, as she does for all her sisters, but with one son returned, she fears Nerdanel no longer sees her as a solace. Not when she has a son she can hold again, even if she must balance that with the quiet heartache of Aikanaro’s chosen fate.

They do still talk sometimes – after all, they still share the pain of children still living on the far side of the Sea, their deaths all but guaranteed by the Doom. (None have been able to say if Nerwen once again fought the Kinslaying from the other side at Doriath, but it would not surprise her mother to learn that she had.) But Eärwen has felt Nerdanel drawing away.

It is not only her Nerdanel has withdrawn from. She spends less and less time in Tirion, or indeed, any of the elven cities. (She is not welcome in Valimar, and has not been since the Kinslaying. Alqualondë would embrace her if she wished to dwell among the Lindar, for it is known she opposed her husband and warned her sons against their folly. Eärwen has given her sister an open invitation at her mother’s express direction. But Nerdanel has never gone. She can barely look Eärwen in the eye, knowing her brothers had been killed. The rest of Alqualondë is too much.)

She has taken increasingly to Formenos, not that any of them understand why. Fëanaro had done nothing to repair it or even attempt to set it back into some semblance of order when he retrieved his father’s body. It sat entirely empty for the next two yeni.

Eärwen did not think it was healthy for Nerdanel to spend so much time alone, far from the comfort and company of other elves and most especially what kin she had left. Mahtan and Rilmë worried for their daughter, but Rilmë was just as puzzled by her daughter’s behavior as Eärwen.

Eärwen sighed as she looked at the empty place. The long tables in the family dining hall of the King’s House had once been so full. Now they need less than a dozen places.

“Shall I clear that setting, my lady?” the royal steward asked quietly.

She should have known his eyes were too sharp to have missed where hers had landed.

Eärwen shook her head.

“Leave it,” she replied. “It will harm no one to leave a place for hope.”


End file.
